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Mountainous THANKS to everyone who’s helped with this hair-raising, mo-fun-than-some-fundraiser! We are at $915!!! Let’s take this to a cool grand for Rog.

$85 and counting…

If you are waiting for the right time to go over to the Movember Foundation website and donate, this is it. http://mobro.co/albunten

There was a great response to the Mailchimp and post last night. Turns out people give a shit on Giving Tuesday! Wonderful news! Facts no longer matter for our elected officials, but people give a shit about men’s health! Splendid!

Most mustachian greetings be upon ye!

With the close of my fifth Movember arriving shortly, it’s time to send out the annual report. I’ll begin with visual evidence demonstrating my firm commitment to the “handlebar” mo this year.

Yes. It’s creepy. I know. Just ginger enough to put you off your soup. After four years of the standard fare, I had to change gear, see what she could really do.

(If you plan to read the whole post, skip this… if not, tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, consider a gift to Movember on my late father’s behalf. Follow link for details.)

We all take part in this hairy caper for myriad reasons, but at the end of the day we know it’s all for health and sanity. We want to keep them in our possession for as long as humanly (humanely?) possible.

It’s true we sometime do what our doctors tell us not to or eat one too many donuts, but what would life be without a reason to exercise our choice… Choose to smoke, choose to drink, choose to love, choose to run, but also choose to be in charge of our facilities enough to know that we can’t do everything we want forever…except love. We can do that for donkeys. It gets hard sometimes, though. A few more beers and that’d be another post.

And, of course, realize that good intentions are just a shiny pair of shoes—it’s the walking that’s the tough part. My #mosober ploy didn’t work out as planned. I won’t make excuses here. I’ll just say duly noted for another walk in this long life.

More of…

I’ve enjoyed the time dedicated to thinking of my dear dad and only wish I had more—more time with him, more games of cribbage with him, more walks up Mt Philo. Enjoy every minute. You can never get them back and memories aren’t as engaging as real conversations. Ask hard questions. Laugh. Eat. The simple times are what I miss most.

I also wish I had more time to put into this hair-raising fundraisier.

That said, I’m very happy to report I hit my initial goal of $500. Nine generous donors ponied up some hard-earned cash to show they care about the health of men around the world. I won’t go into the whole numbers game.

Suffice to say the numbers on prostate cancer alone are staggering, to say nothing of testicular cancer, mental health and suicide.

The Big Dig

These mo-bros and mo-sisters at Movember Foundation are doing a good thing and I highly encourage you to put what ever disposable income you have to give on Giving Tuesday toward their noble efforts. I’ve got $100 of my own money to start us off. Let’s see if we can’t double-down on the fundraising goal. You always double down.

And with that, I’ll sign off, leaving you with a rare photo of my dad with some serious mutton-chop-mustache thing going on, being a goof with flowing locks and staples in his chest hair, to whom this whole shebang is dedicated.

These blog posts are descending into Facebook-like blasts of non-sense. And I don’t like that. I hope you know that. I’m sure you do. If I had started this bloggery for the purpose of re-purposing Facebook posts, nobody would be interested in that.

It started with some gusto. For Movember. For Dad. For remembering. For writing.

It felt good to get a few things off my chest, to let fly, to let go and make mistakes and admit things that I wouldn’t usually… but hell, that stuff is then out there. Out in the ether of the interwebs. Public. And who knows… maybe it would be taken out of context, maybe a bout of humor would be taken as hurtful to someone or unprofessional. Everyone has to be professional nowadays. People are very sensitive, too. Sometimes for good reason. Other times, I’m not always sure. Hard to imagine how other peoples’ shoes pinch if you’ve never walked a Swedish mile in them.

So if I’m tired (like now), hell if I want to write something on the edge just to “write something that scares me.” I want to fulfill my obligation to myself and get back to my book or something relaxing like that. But no…

I really want to leave Facebook actually. Read an article recently that said I should. You can read an article that will tell you to do anything these days. But this one had some sense. I won’t regurgitate it all, but suffice to say that said FB is a time suck. And they quoted Steve Martin in it when asked about the beginning of his career and how he made it work, he said, “be so good that they can’t hate you” or something of the sort.

Let’s be honest, Facebook is a lot of mediocre thoughts crafted on toilet seats for people that don’t really care but read it all anyway. A lot of a little. That’s not all it is, but it’s a lot of that. Maybe it’ll be good for digestion and/or bowel movember worldwide (men’s health?). I’m sure you could read an article that tells you people spend an avg. of 5 mintes more on the toilet these days because they are on their phones, on Tinder, on Facebook, crafting a crushing Tweet or cropping an epic Insta post.

Ahh. I already feel better that I took the time to develop a thought in mildly lucid prose. And this is exactly why I wanted to do this post-a-day madness. To hit a target (and miss to know what it feels like) and spread some good words… not just words for words sake. They aren’t words good enough so Steve Martin wouldn’t dislike me (is he on Facebook?), but better than a photo dump or two sentences of mild import.

In other news, the royal we hit the target of $500 dollars raised for Movember this year. Ooorah! Now with a week left, let’s see if we can’t double that and his $1,000. Hell, go for gold.

Yup. This has been tough to keep up with. Hats off to people that write a whole novel in a month. (#NaNoWriMo) Duly noted for the next time I try to convince myself that’s a good idea.

I’ve missed two days in the month so far. Certainly haven’t been able to put the time and/or effort into the whole shebang like I imagined. Next year I need to set a word minimum so I’m not tempted into half ass posts like this one.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hope you spent it with a full belly and happy heart.

We’ve had this mandolin for years. It’s got a crack in the body right where the bridge sits. Dad never wanted to get rid of it, like many things around the house. “It’s still good,” he’d say, “just needs some love.”

I’m no luthier but I do love the sound of a mando. Tried to fixed it a few times. I put a dowel in the body, the exact size to hold the weight of the bridge. Didn’t work, surprise.

Rather than “throw good money after bad,” I decided it might make a sweet decoration – at least it’d get appreciated – and hung it next to the front door of the house. Dad couldn’t handle an instrument being treated that way so he took it down and ferreted it away with all the other instruments we have hanging around the house in various states of disrepair.

Well, yesterday I fixed it…to the wall of the “Shack”… to watch the weather take it back from whence it came. Part an ode to all the music we used to play in that shack, part a way to deal with some of the piles of stuff we were left in the house, part a rebel yell.

“Last year on November 11 I called my father for Veteran’s Day, as I usually did. He would reluctantly admit that he had served his country, but not much else. In addition to the usual goings on in “river city,” we shared mustache growing stories. This would be his second year in a row participating in Movember. He didn’t really get it because he always had a ‘stache, but he humored us and did it for men’s health. That was the last time I spoke to him. I’m doing Movember again this year (for the fourth year in a row), but it’s more of a personal journey this time. I don’t have the energy to shout about how you should give money. I’m doing it for dad. I’m doing it for health. Give if you like. Or just watch your health. Get a check up. Be happy. Love. Live it up. Life’s short.”

After a day in the office, a sister city meeting in Burlington after and a stop off on the way home to see some good ol’ fashion, salt of the earth Charlotters, there ain’t much left in the tank for lucid thoughts and bloggy prayers.

Let it never be said I didn’t try. Hell, I gave it a whack. More later…